Title: Sharp's Gun Serenade (Educate or Bust)
Author: Robert E. Howard
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Language: English
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Sharp's Gun Serenade(Educate or Bust)

by

Robert E. Howard

A BRECKINRIDGE ELKINS STORY

First published in Action Stories, January 1937
Also published as "Educate or Bust" (with modifications)

I WAS heading for War Paint, jogging along easy and
comfortable, when I seen a galoot coming up the trail in a cloud of dust,
jest aburning the breeze. He didn't stop to pass the time of day. He went
past me so fast Cap'n Kidd missed the snap he made at his hoss, which shows
he was sure hightailing it. I recognized him as Jack Sprague, a young waddy
which worked on a spread not far from War Paint. His face was pale and sot in
a look of desprut resolution, like a man which has jest bet his pants on a
pair of deuces, and he had a rope in his hand though I couldn't see nothing
he might be aiming to lasso. He went fogging on up the trail into the
mountains and I looked back to see if I could see the posse. Because about
the only time a outlander ever heads for the high Humbolts is when he's about
three jumps and a low whoop ahead of a necktie party.

I seen another cloud of dust, all right, but it warn't big enough for
more'n one man, and purty soon I seen it was Bill Glanton of War Paint. But
that was good enough reason for Sprague's haste, if Bill was on the prod.
Glanton is from Texas, original, and whilst he is a sentimental cuss in
repose he's a ring-tailed whizzer with star-spangled wheels when his feelings
is ruffled. And his feelings is ruffled tolerable easy.

Glanton ground his teeth slightly and says, "Don't start yore derned
hillbilly stallin' with me! I ain't got time to waste the week or so it takes
to git information out of a Humbolt Mountain varmint. I ain't chasin' that
misguided idjit to do him injury. I'm pursooin' him to save his life! A gal
in War Paint has jilted him and he's so broke up about it he's threatened to
ride right over the mortal ridge. Us boys has been watchin' him and follerin'
him around and takin' pistols and rat-pizen and the like away from him, but
this mornin' he give us the slip and taken to the hills. It was a waitress in
the Bawlin' Heifer Restawrant which put me on his trail. He told her he was
goin' up in the hills where he wouldn't be interfered with and hang
hisself!"

"So that was why he had the rope," I says. "Well, it's his own business,
ain't it?"

"No, it ain't," says Bill sternly. "When a man is in his state he ain't
responsible and it's the duty of his friends to look after him. He'll thank
us in the days to come. Anyway, he owes me six bucks and if he hangs hisself
I'll never git paid. Come on, dang it! He'll lynch hisself whilst we stands
here jawin'."

"Well, all right," I says. "After all, I got to think about the
repertation of the Humbolts. They ain't never been a suicide committed up
here before."

But I ignored this slander and reined Cap'n Kidd around jest as he was
fixing to bite off Bill's hoss's ear. Jack had left the trail but he left
sign a blind man could foller. He had a long start on us, but we both had
better hosses than his'n and after awhile we come to where he'd tied his hoss
amongst the bresh at the foot of Cougar Mountain. We tied our hosses too, and
pushed through the bresh on foot, and right away we seen him. He was climbing
up the slope toward a ledge which had a tree growing on it. One limb stuck
out over the aidge and was jest right to make a swell gallows, as I told
Bill.

But Bill was in a lather.

"He'll git to that ledge before we can ketch him!" says he. "What'll we
do?"

"Shoot him in the laig," I suggested, but Bill says, "No, dern it! He'll
bust hisself fallin' down the slope. And if we start after him he'll hustle
up to that ledge and hang hisself before we can git to him. Look there,
though —they's a thicket growin' up the slope west of the ledge. You
circle around and crawl up through it whilst I git out in the open and
attracts his attention. I'll try to keep him talkin' till you can git up
there and grab him from behind."

So I ducked low in the bresh and ran around the foot of the slope till I
come to the thicket. Jest before I div into the tangle I seen Jack had got to
the ledge and was fastening his rope to the limb which stuck out over the
aidge. Then I couldn't see him no more because that thicket was so dense and
full of briars it was about like crawling through a pile of fighting bobcats.
But as I wormed my way up through it I heard Bill yell, "Hey, Jack, don't do
that, you dern fool!"

"Lemme alone!" Jack hollered. "Don't come no closer. This here is a free
country! I got a right to hang myself if I wanta!"

"But it's a dam fool thing to do," wailed Bill.

"My life is rooint!" asserted Jack. "My true love has been betrayed. I'm a
wilted tumble-bug—I mean tumble-weed—on the sands of Time!
Destiny has slapped the Zero brand on my flank! I—"

I dunno what else he said because at that moment I stepped into something
which let out a ear-splitting squall and attached itself vi'lently to my hind
laig. That was jest my luck. With all the thickets they was in the Humbolts,
a derned cougar had to be sleeping in that'n. And of course it had to be me
which stepped on him.

Well, no cougar is a match for a Elkins in a stand-up fight, but the way
to lick him (the cougar, I mean; they ain't no way to lick a Elkins)
is to git yore lick in before he can clinch with you. But the bresh was so
thick I didn't see him till he had holt of me and I was so stuck up with them
derned briars I couldn't hardly move nohow. So before I had time to do
anything about it he had sunk most of his tushes and claws into me and was
reching for new holts as fast as he could rake. It was old Brigamer, too, the
biggest, meanest and oldest cat in the Humbolts. Cougar Mountain is named for
him and he's so dang tough he ain't even scairt of Cap'n Kidd, which is plumb
pizen to all cat- animals.

Before I could git old Brigamer by the neck and haul him loose from me he
had clawed my clothes all to pieces and likewise lacerated my hide free and
generous. In fact he made me so mad that when I did git him loose I taken him
by the tail and mowed down the bresh in a fifteen foot circle around me with
him, till the hair wore off of his tail and it slipped out of my hands. Old
Brigamer then laigged it off down the mountain squalling fit to bust yore
ear- drums. He was the maddest cougar you ever seen, but not mad enough to
renew the fray. He must of recognized me.

At that moment I heard Bill yelling for help up above me so I headed up
the slope, swearing loudly and bleeding freely, and crashing through them
bushes like a wild bull. Evidently the time for stealth and silence was past.
I busted into the open and seen Bill hopping around on the aidge of the ledge
trying to git holt of Jack which was kicking like a grasshopper on the end of
the rope, jest out of rech.

"Whyn't you sneak up soft and easy like I said?" howled Bill. "I was jest
about to argy him out of the notion. He'd tied the rope around his neck and
was standin' on the aidge, when that racket bust loose in the bresh and
scairt him so bad he fell offa the ledge! Do somethin'."

"Shoot the rope in two," I suggested, but Bill said, "No, you cussed fool!
He'd fall down the cliff and break his neck!"

But I seen it warn't a very big tree so I went and got my arms around it
and give it a heave and loosened the roots, and then kinda twisted it around
so the limb that Jack was hung to was over the ledge now. I reckon I busted
most of the roots in the process, jedging from the noise. Bill's eyes popped
out when he seen that, and he reched up kind of dazed like and cut the rope
with his bowie. Only he forgot to grab Jack before he cut it, and Jack hit
the ledge with a resounding thud.

"Aw," says I, biting me off a chew of terbacker, "all men which has been
hung looks that way. I remember onst the Vigilantes hung Uncle Jeppard
Grimes, and it taken us three hours to bring him to after we cut him down. Of
course, he'd been hangin' a hour before we found him."

"Shet up and help me revive him," snarled Bill, gitting the noose off of
his neck. "You seleck the damndest times to converse about the sins of yore
infernal relatives—look, he's comin' too!"

Because Jack had begun to gasp and kick around, so Bill brung out a bottle
and poured a snort down his gullet, and pretty soon Jack sot up and felt of
his neck. His jaws wagged but didn't make no sound.

Glanton now seemed to notice my disheveled condition for the first time.
"What the hell happened to you?" he ast in amazement.

"Aw, I stepped on old Brigamer," I scowled.

"Well, whyn't you hang onto him?" he demanded. "Don't you know they's a
big bounty on his pelt? We could of split the dough."

"I've had a bellyfull of old Brigamer," I replied irritably. "I don't care
if I never see him again. Look what he done to my best britches! If you wants
that bounty, you go after it yoreself."

"You won't neither," says Bill sternly. "Me and yore paw is old friends
and I aim to save yore wuthless life if I have to kill you to do it."

"I defies you!" squawked Jack, making a sudden dive betwixt Bill's laigs
and he would of got clean away if I hadn't snagged the seat of his britches
with my spur. He then displayed startling ingratitude by hitting me with a
rock and, whilst we was tying him up with the hanging rope, his langwidge was
scandalous.

"Did you ever see sech a idjit?" demands Bill, setting on him and fanning
hisself with his Stetson. "What we goin' to do with him? We cain't keep him
tied up forever."

"We got to watch him clost till he gits out of the notion of killin'
hisself," I says. "He can stay at our cabin for a spell."

"I won't go," says he bitterly. "I don't never want to see no woman again,
not even a mountain-woman. I'm a embittered man. The honey of love has turnt
to tranchler pizen. Leave me to the buzzards and cougars."

"I got it," says Bill. "We'll take him on a huntin' trip way up in the
high Humbolts. They's some of that country I'd like to see myself. Reckon
yo're the only white man which has ever been up there, Breck—if we was
to call you a white man."

"What you mean by that there remark?" I demanded heatedly. "You know damn
well I h'ain't got nary a drop of Injun blood in me—hey, look out!"

I glimpsed a furry hide through the bresh, and thinking it was old
Brigamer coming back, I pulled my pistols and started shooting at it, when a
familiar voice yelled wrathfully, "Hey, you cut that out, dern it!"

The next instant a pecooliar figger hove into view—a tall ga'nt old
ranny with long hair and whiskers, with a club in his hand and a painter hide
tied around his middle. Sprague's eyes bugged out and he says: "Who in the
name uh God's that?"

"Another victim of feminine wiles," I says. "That's old Joshua Braxton, of
Chawed Ear, the oldest and the toughest batchelor in South Nevada. I jedge
that Miss Stark, the old maid schoolteacher, has renewed her matrimonical
designs onto him. When she starts rollin' sheep's eyes at him he always dons
that there grab and takes to the high sierras."

"It's the only way to perteck myself," snarled Joshua. "She'd marry me by
force if I didn't resort to strategy. Not many folks comes up here and sech
as does don't recognize me in this rig. What you varmints disturbin' my
solitude for? Yore racket woke me up, over in my cave. When I seen old
Brigamer high tailin' it for distant parts I figgered Elkins was on the
mountain."

"We're here to save this young idjit from his own folly," says Bill. "You
come up here because a woman wants to marry you. Jack comes up here to
decorate a oak limb with his own carcass because one wouldn't marry him."

"Some men never knows their luck," says old Joshua enviously. "Now me, I
yearns to return to Chawed Ear which I've been away from for a month. But
whilst that old mudhen of a Miss Stark is there I haunts the wilderness if it
takes the rest of my life."

"Well, be at ease, Josh," says Bill. "Miss Stark ain't there no more. She
pulled out for Arizona three weeks ago."

"Halleloojah!" says Joshua, throwing away his club. "Now I can return and
take my place among men—Hold on!" says he, reching for his club again,
"likely they'll be gittin' some other old harridan to take her place. That
new- fangled schoolhouse they got at Chawed Ear is a curse and a blight.
We'll never be shet of husband-huntin' 'rithmetic shooters. I better stay up
here after all."

"Don't worry," says Bill. "I seen a pitcher of the gal that's comin' from
the East to take Miss Stark's place and I can assure you that a gal as young
and pretty as her wouldn't never try to slap her brand on no old buzzard like
you."

"Young and purty you says?" I ast with sudden interest.

"As a racin' filly!" he declared. "First time I ever knowed a school-marm
could be less'n forty and have a face that didn't look like the beginnin's of
a long drouth. She's due into Chawed Ear on the evenin' stage, and the whole
town turns out to welcome her. The mayor aims to make a speech if he's sober
enough, and they've got up a band to play."

"I dunno," says I. That was before I got educated. "They's times when I
wisht I could read and write. We ain't never had no school on Bear
Creek."

"What would you read outside of the labels onto whiskey bottles?" snorted
old Joshua.

"Funny how a purty face changes a man's viewp'int," remarked Bill. "I
remember onst Miss Stark ast you how you folks up on Bear Creek would like
for her to come up there and teach yore chillern, and you taken one look at
her face and told her it was agen the principles of Bear Creek to have their
peaceful innercence invaded by the corruptin' influences of education. You
said the folks was all banded together to resist sech corruption to the last
drop of blood."

"It's my duty to Bear Creek to pervide culture for the risin' generation,"
says I, ignoring them slanderous remarks. "I feels the urge for knowledge
a-heavin' and a-surgin' in my boozum. We're goin' to have a school on Bear
Creek, by golly, if I have to lick every old mossback in the Humbolts. I'll
build a cabin for the schoolhouse myself."

"Where'll you git a teacher?" ast Joshua. "Chawed Ear ain't goin' to let
you have their'n."

"Chawed Ear is, too," I says. "If they won't give her up peaceful I
resorts to force. Bear Creek is goin' to have culture if I have to wade
fetlock deep in gore to pervide it. Le's go! I'm r'arin' to open the ball for
arts and letters. Air you-all with me?"

"No!" says Jack, plenty emphatic.

"What we goin' to do with him?" demands Glanton.

"Aw," I said, "we'll tie him up some place along the road and pick him up
as we come back by."

"All right," says Bill, ignoring Jack's impassioned protests. "I jest as
soon. My nerves is frayed ridin' herd on this young idjit and I needs a
little excitement to quiet 'em. You can always be counted on for that.
Anyway, I'd like to see that there school-marm gal myself. How about you,
Joshua?"

"Yo're both crazy," growls Joshua. "But I've lived up here on nuts and
jackrabbits till I ain't shore of my own sanity. Anyway, I know the only way
to disagree successfully with Elkins is to kill him, and I got strong doubts
of bein' able to do that. Lead on! I'll do anything within reason to help
keep eddication out of Chawed Ear. T'ain't only my personal feelin's
regardin' schoolteachers. It's the principle of the thing."

"Git yore clothes and le's hustle then," I says.

"This painter hide is all I got," says he.

"You cain't go down into the settlements in that rig," I says.

"I can and will," says he. "I look as civilized as you do, with yore
clothes all tore to rags account of old Brigamer. I got a hoss clost by. I'll
git him if old Brigamer ain't already."

So Joshua went to git his hoss and me and Bill toted Jack down the slope
to where our hosses was. His conversation was plentiful and heated, but we
ignored it, and was jest tying him onto his hoss when Joshua arrov with his
critter. Then the trouble started. Cap'n Kidd evidently thought Joshua was
some kind of a varmint because every time Joshua come nigh him he taken in
after him and run him up a tree. And every time Joshua tried to come down,
Cap'n Kidd busted loose from me and run him back up again.

I didn't git no help from Bill. All he done was laugh like a spotted
hyener till Cap'n Kidd got irritated at them guffaws and kicked him in the
belly and knocked him clean through a clump of spruces. Time I got him
ontangled he looked about as disreputable as what I did because most of his
clothes was tore off of him. We couldn't find his hat, neither, so I tore up
what was left of my shirt and he tied the pieces around his head, like a
Apache. Exceptin' Jack, we was sure a wild-looking bunch.

But I was disgusted thinking about how much time we was wasting whilst all
the time Bear Creek was wallering in ignorance, so the next time Cap'n Kidd
went for Joshua I took and busted him betwixt the ears with my six-shooter
and that had some effect onto him—a little.

So we sot out, with Jack tied onto his hoss and cussing something
terrible, and Joshua on a ga'nt old nag he rode bareback with a hackamore. I
had Bill to ride betwixt him and me so's to keep that painter hide as far
away from Cap'n Kidd as possible, but every time the wind shifted and blowed
the smell to him, Cap'n Kidd reched over and taken a bite at Joshua, and
sometimes he bit Bill's hoss by accident, and sometimes he bit Bill, and the
langwidge Bill directed at that pore animal was shocking to hear.

We was aiming for the trail that runs down from Bear Creek into the Chawed
Ear road, and we hit it a mile west of Bowie Knife Pass. We left Jack tied to
a nice shady oak tree in the pass and told him we'd be back for him in a few
hours, but some folks is never satisfied. 'Stead of being grateful for all
the trouble we'd went to for him, he acted right nasty and called us some
names I wouldn't of endured if he'd been in his right mind.

But we tied his hoss to the same tree and hustled down the trail and
presently come out onto the War Paint-Chawed Ear road, some miles west of
Chawed Ear. And there we sighted our first human—a feller on a pinto
mare and when he seen us he give a shriek and took out down the road toward
Chawed Ear like the devil had him by the britches.

"Le's ast him if the teacher's got there yet," I suggested, so we taken
out after him, yelling for him to wait a minute. But he jest spurred his hoss
that much harder and before we'd gone any piece, Joshua's fool hoss jostled
agen Cap'n Kidd, which smelt that painter skin and got the bit betwixt his
teeth and run Joshua and his hoss three miles through the bresh before I
could stop him. Bill follered us, and of course, time we got back to the
road, the feller on the pinto mare was out of sight long ago.

So we headed for Chawed Ear but everybody that lived along the road had
run into their cabins and bolted the doors, and they shot at us through the
winders as we rode by. Bill said irritably, after having his off-ear nicked
by a buffalo rifle, he says, "Dern it, they must know we aim to steal their
schoolteacher."

"Aw, they couldn't know that," I says. "I bet they is a war on betwixt
Chawed Ear and War Paint."

"Well, what they shootin' at me for, then?" demanded Joshua.

"How could they recognize you in that rig?" I ast. "What's that?"

Ahead of us, away down the road, we seen a cloud of dust, and here come a
gang of men on hosses, waving guns and yelling.

"Well, whatever the reason is," says Bill, "we better not stop to find
out! Them gents is out for blood, and," says he as the bullets begun to knock
up the dust around us, "I jedge it's our blood!"

"Pull into the bresh," says I. "I goes to Chawed Ear in spite of hell,
high water and all the gunmen they can raise."

So we taken to the bresh, and they lit in after us, about forty or fifty
of 'em, but we dodged and circled and taken short cuts old Joshua knowed
about, and when we emerged into the town of Chawed Ear, our pursewers warn't
nowheres in sight. In fack, they warn't nobody in sight. All the doors was
closed and the shutters up on the cabins and saloons and stores and
everything. It was pecooliar.

As we rode into the clearing somebody let bam at us with a shotgun
from the nearest cabin, and the load combed Joshua's whiskers. This made me
mad, so I rode at the cabin and pulled my foot out'n the stirrup and kicked
the door in, and whilst I was doing this, the feller inside hollered and
jumped out the winder, and Bill grabbed him by the neck. It was Esau Barlow,
one of Chawed Ear's confirmed citizens.

"What the hell's the matter with you buzzards?" roared Bill.

"Is that you, Glanton?" gasped Esau, blinking his eyes.

"A-course it's me!" roared Bill. "Do I look like a Injun?"

"Yes?ow! I mean, I didn't know you in that there turban," says
Esau. "Am I dreamin' or is that Josh Braxton and Breck Elkins?"

"Well," says Esau, "a little while ago Dick Lynch rode into town with his
hoss all of a lather and swore he'd jest outrun the wildest war-party that
ever come down from the hills!"

"'Boys,' says Dick, 'they ain't neither Injuns nor white men! They're wild
men, that's what! One of 'em's big as a grizzly b'ar, with no shirt on, and
he's ridin' a hoss bigger'n a bull moose! One of the others is as ragged and
ugly as him, but not so big, and wearin' a Apache headdress. T'other'n's got
nothin' on but a painter's hide and a club and his hair and whiskers falls to
his shoulders. When they seen me,' says Dick, 'they sot up awful yells and
come for me like a gang of man-eatin' cannibals. I fogged it for town,' says
Dick, warnin' everybody along the road to fort theirselves in their
cabins."

"Well," says Esau, "when he says that, sech men as was left in town got
their hosses and guns and they taken out up the road to meet the war-party
before it got into town."

"Well, of all the fools!" I says. "Say, where's the new teacher?"

"The stage ain't arriv yet," says he. "The mayor and the band rode out to
meet it at the Yaller Creek crossin' and escort her in to town in honor.
They'd left before Dick brung news of the war-party."

"Come on!" I says to my warriors. "We likewise meets that stage!"

So we fogged it on through the town and down the road, and purty soon we
heard music blaring ahead of us, and men yipping and shooting off their
pistols like they does when they're celebrating, so we jedged they'd met the
stage and was escorting it in.

"What you goin' to do now?" ast Bill, and about that time a noise bust out
behind us and we looked back and seen that gang of Chawed Ear maniacs which
had been chasing us dusting down the road after us, waving their Winchesters.
I knowed they warn't no use to try to explain to them that we warn't no
war-party of cannibals. They'd salivate us before we could git clost enough
to make 'em hear what we was saying. So I yelled: "Come on. If they git her
into town they'll fort theirselves agen us. We takes her now! Foller me!"

So we swept down the road and around the bend and there was the stage
coach coming up the road with the mayor riding alongside with his hat in his
hand, and a whiskey bottle sticking out of each saddle bag and his hip
pocket. He was orating at the top of his voice to make hisself heard above
the racket the band was making. They was blowing horns and banging drums and
twanging on Jews harps, and the hosses was skittish and shying and jumping.
But we heard the mayor say, "—And so we welcomes you, Miss Devon, to our
peaceful little community where life runs smooth and tranquil and men's souls
is overflowin' with milk and honey—" And jest then we stormed around
the bend and come tearing down on 'em with the mob right behind us yelling
and cussing and shooting free and fervent.

The next minute they was the damndest mix-up you ever seen, what with the
hosses bucking their riders off, and men yelling and cussing, and the hosses
hitched to the stage running away and knocking the mayor off'n his hoss. We
hit 'em like a cyclone and they shot at us and hit us over the head with
their music horns, and right in the middle of the fray the mob behind us
rounded the bend and piled up amongst us before they could check their
hosses, and everybody was so confused they started fighting everybody else.
Nobody knowed what it was all about but me and my warriors. But Chawed Ear's
motto is: "When in doubt, shoot!"

So they laid into us and into each other free and hearty. And we was far
from idle. Old Joshua was laying out his feller-townsmen right and left with
his ellum club, saving Chawed Ear from education in spite of itself, and
Glanton was beating the band over their heads with his six-shooter, and I was
trompling folks in my rush for the stage.

The fool hosses had whirled around and started in the general direction of
the Atlantic Ocean, and the driver and the shotgun guard couldn't stop 'em.
But Cap'n Kidd overtook it in maybe a dozen strides and I left the saddle in
a flying leap and landed on it. The guard tried to shoot me with his shotgun
so I throwed it into a alder clump and he didn't let go of it quick enough so
he went along with it.

I then grabbed the ribbons out of the driver's hands and swung them fool
hosses around on their hind laigs, and the stage kind of revolved on one
wheel for a dizzy instant, and then settled down again and we headed back up
the road lickety-split and in a instant was right amongst the fracas that was
going on around Bill and Joshua.

About that time I noticed that the driver was trying to stab me with a
butcher knife so I kind of tossed him off the stage and there ain't no sense
in him going around threatening to have me arrested account of him landing
headfirst in the bass horn so it taken seven men to pull him out. He ought to
watch where he falls when he gits throwed off of a stage going at a high
run.

I also feels that the mayor is prone to carry petty grudges or he wouldn't
be so bitter about me accidentally running over him with all four wheels. And
it ain't my fault he was stepped on by Cap'n Kidd, neither. Cap'n Kidd was
jest follering the stage because he knowed I was on it. And it naturally
irritates him to stumble over somebody and that's why he chawed the mayor's
ear.

As for them other fellers which happened to git knocked down and run over
by the stage, I didn't have nothing personal agen 'em. I was jest rescuing
Joshua and Bill which was outnumbered about twenty to one. I was doing them
Chawed Ear idjits a favor, if they only knowed it, because in about another
minute Bill would of started using the front ends of his six-shooters instead
of the butts and the fight would of turnt into a massacre. Bill has got a
awful temper.

Him and Joshua had did the enemy considerable damage but the battle was
going agen 'em when I arriv on the field of carnage. As the stage crashed
through the mob I reched down and got Joshua by the neck and pulled him out
from under about fifteen men which was beating him to death with their gun
butts and pulling out his whiskers by the handfulls and I slung him up on top
of the other luggage. About that time we was rushing past the dogpile which
Bill was the center of and I reched down and snared him as we went by, but
three of the men which had holt of him wouldn't let go, so I hauled all four
of 'em up onto the stage. I then handled the team with one hand and used the
other'n to pull them idjits loose from Bill like pulling ticks off'n a cow's
hide, and then throwed 'em at the mob which was chasing us.

Men and hosses piled up in a stack on the road which was further messed up
by Cap'n Kidd plowing through it as he come busting along after the stage,
and by the time we sighted Chawed Ear again, our enemies was far behind us,
though still rambunctious.

We tore through Chawed Ear in a fog of dust and the women and chillern
which had ventured out of their shacks squalled and run back again, though
they warn't in no danger. But Chawed Ear folks is pecooliar that way.

When we was out of sight of Chawed Ear I give the lines to Bill and swung
down on the side of the stage and stuck my head in. They was one of the
purtiest gals I ever seen in there, all huddled up in a corner and looking so
pale and scairt I was afraid she was going to faint, which I'd heard Eastern
gals has a habit of doing.

"Oh, spare me!" she begged. "Please don't scalp me!"

"Be at ease, Miss Devon," I reassured her. "I ain't no Injun, nor no wild
man neither. Neither is my friends here. We wouldn't none of us hurt a flea.
We're that refined and soft-hearted you wouldn't believe it—" At that
instant a wheel hit a stump and the stage jumped into the air and I bit my
tongue and roared in some irritation, "Bill, you condemned son of a striped
polecat, stop this stage before I comes up there and breaks yore cussed
neck!"

"Try, you beef headed lummox," he invites, but he pulled up the hosses and
I taken off my hat and opened the door. Bill and Joshua clumb down and peered
over my shoulder. Miss Devon looked tolerable sick. Maybe it was something
she et.

"Miss Devon," I says, "I begs yore pardon for this here informal welcome.
But you sees before you a man whose heart bleeds for the benighted state of
his native community. I'm Breckinridge Elkins, of Bear Creek, where hearts is
pure and motives is lofty, but culture is weak.

"You sees before you," says I, growing more enthusiastic about education
the longer I looked at them big brown eyes of her'n, "a man which has growed
up in ignorance. I cain't neither read nor write. Joshua here, in the painter
skin, he cain't neither, and neither can Bill"

"That's a lie," says Bill. "I can read and—ooomp!" I'd kind
of stuck my elbow in his stummick. I didn't want him to spile the effeck of
my speech. Miss Devon was gitting some of her color back.

"Miss Devon," I says, "will you please ma'm come up to Bear Creek and be
our schoolteacher?"

"Why," says she bewilderedly, "I came West expecting to teach at Chawed
Ear, but I haven't signed any contract, and—"

"How much was them snake-hunters goin' to pay you?" I ast.

"Ninety dollars a month," says she.

"We pays you a hundred," I says. "Board and lodgin' free."

"Hell's fire," says Bill. "They never was that much hard cash money on
Bear Creek."

"We all donates coon hides and corn licker," I snapped. "I sells the stuff
in War Paint and hands the dough to Miss Devon. Will you keep yore snout out
of my business."

"But what will the people of Chewed Ear say?" she wonders.

"Nothin'," I told her heartily. "I'll tend to them!"

"It seems so strange and irregular," says she weakly. "I don't know."

"Then it's all settled!" I says. "Great! Le's go!"

"Where?" she gasped, grabbing holt of the stage as I clumb onto the
seat.

"Bear Creek!" I says. "Varmints and hoss-thieves, hunt the bresh! Culture
is on her way to Bear Creek!" And we went fogging it down the road as fast as
the hosses could hump it. Onst I looked back at Miss Devon and seen her
getting pale again, so I yelled above the clatter of the wheels, "Don't be
scairt, Miss Devon! Ain't nothin' goin' to hurt you. B. Elkins is on the job
to perteck you, and I aim to be at yore side from now on!"

At this she said something I didn't understand. In fack, it sounded like a
low moan. And then I heard Joshua say to Bill, hollering to make hisself
heard, "Eddication my eye! The big chump's lookin' for a wife, that's what!
Ten to one she gives him the mitten!"

It sounded like firecrackers popping back down the road. Bill yelled,
"Holy smoke, it's them Chawed Ear maniacs! They're still on our trail and
they're gainin' on us!"

Cussing heartily I poured leather into them fool hosses, and jest then we
hit the mouth of the Bear Creek trail and I swung into it. They'd never been
a wheel on that trail before, and the going was tolerable rough. It was all
Bill and Joshua could do to keep from gitting throwed off, and they was
seldom more'n one wheel on the ground at a time. Naturally the mob gained on
us and when we roared up into Bowie Knife Pass they warn't more'n a quarter
mile behind us, whooping bodacious.

I pulled up the hosses beside the tree where Jack Sprague was still tied
up to. He gawped at Miss Devon and she gawped back at him.

"Listen," I says, "here's a lady in distress which we're rescuin' from
teachin' school in Chawed Ear. A mob's right behind us. This ain't no time to
think about yoreself. Will you postpone yore sooicide if I turn you loose,
and git onto this stage and take the young lady up the trail whilst the rest
of us turns back the mob?"

"I will!" says he with more enthusiasm than he'd showed since we stopped
him from hanging hisself. So I cut him loose and he clumb onto the stage.

"Drive on to Kiowa Canyon," I told him as he picked up the lines. "Wait
for us there. Don't be scairt, Miss Devon! I'll soon be with you! B. Elkins
never fails a lady fair!"

"Gup!" says Jack, and the stage went clattering and banging up the trail
and me and Joshua and Bill taken cover amongst the big rocks that was on each
side of the trail. The pass was jest a narrer gorge, and a lovely place for a
ambush as I remarked.

Well, here they come howling up the steep slope yelling and spurring and
shooting wild, and me and Bill give 'em a salute with our pistols. The charge
halted plumb sudden. They knowed they was licked. They couldn't git at us
because they couldn't climb the cliffs. So after firing a volley which
damaged nothing but the atmosphere, they turnt around and hightailed it back
towards Chawed Ear.

"I hope that's a lesson to 'em," says I as I riz. "Come! I cain't wait to
git culture started on Bear Creek!"

"You cain't wait to git to sparkin' that gal," snorted Joshua. But I
ignored him and forked Cap'n Kidd and headed up the trail, and him and Bill
follered, riding double on Jack Sprague's hoss.

"Why should I deny my honorable intentions?" I says presently. "Anybody
can see Miss Devon is already learnin' to love me! If Jack had my
attraction for the fair sex, he wouldn't be luggin' around a ruint life. Hey,
where's the stage?" Because we'd reched Kiowa Canyon and they warn't no
stage.

"Here's a note stuck on a tree," says Bill. "I'll read it—well, for
Lord's sake!" he yelped, "Lissen to this:

"'Dere boys: I've desided I ain't going to hang myself, and Miss Devon has
desided she don't want to teach school at Bear Creek. Breck gives her the
willies. She ain't altogther shore he's human. With me it's love at first
site and she's scairt if she don't marry somebody Breck will marry her, and
she says I'm the best looking prospeck she's saw so far. So we're heading for
War Paint to git married.

Yores trooly, Jack Sprague.'"

"Aw, don't take it like that," says Bill as I give a maddened howl and
impulsively commenced to rip up all the saplings in rech. "You've saved his
life and brung him happiness!"

"And what have I brung me?" I yelled, tearing the limbs off a oak in a
effort to relieve my feelings. "Culture on Bear Creek is shot to hell and my
honest love has been betrayed! Bill Glanton, the next ranny you chase up into
the Humbolts to commit sooicide he don't have to worry about gittin bumped
off —I attends to it myself, personal!"